Why you eat what you eat

Bookworm

4 weeks ago

Preferences and perceptions of food are not solely driven by a sense of taste. In her new book, Why You Eat What You Eat: The Science Behind Our Relationship With Food (W. W. Norton & Company, December, 2017), Rachel Herz, a part-time faculty member in the Psychology Department, examines the sensory, psychological, neuroscientific, and physiological factors that influence eating habits. She looks into research that shows, for example, that loud music can impact taste and consumption rates and labels can influence metabolism rates. Herz is a neuroscientist who specializes in olfaction, emotion and sensory cognition. She is also the author of The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of Smell and That’s Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion. She was recently interviewed about her book by the Boston Globe.